


Five By Five

by FandomGuardian12



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Five has PTSD, Five needs a hug, Internal Monologue, Other, Plot-Conforming, Self-Reflection, blood mention, he's doing his best, they all have PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-14 18:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18057749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FandomGuardian12/pseuds/FandomGuardian12
Summary: Five reflects on himself, his actions, and his family as he fights to stop the looming apocalypse before it can destroy everything he loves. And he does love his siblings, would do anything to save them, however much they annoy him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically my excuse to prove that Five does have a soul. I couldn't choose any specific scene to write on, so I'm just doing my favorite ones. Kinda angsty here, mostly because I do believe that Five still has something of a child left in him. Enjoy!

     He would never quite admit at least not out loud that it felt rather odd being the only one of his siblings without a proper name. After all the years spent alone in the apocalyptic future, he could barely remember why the mother had not given him a real name. Not that it mattered, anyway, as old Sir Reginald had always insisted on calling his adopted children only by their respective numbers.

      _"Number Five,"_ Reginald would often growl out so coldly,  _"you are nowhere close to being able to time travel. Never presume to ask me ever again!"_ And so that become normalcy. The boy was never treated any differently at the Umbrella Academy; his name always had been and always would be... Five. Just Five. 

     This had never really bothered him, at least until he began to work for the Commission. Somehow, hearing those people especially the Handler call him by his number felt utterly wrong. Perhaps the number as absurd as it was to believe a number could serve as a name would only ever sound right coming from his family. 

     Five collected himself abruptly, reflecting that this was an odd musing for the current situation. He straightened up and moved to the middle of the tube room, facing down the Handler with his shoulders squared.

     "You're a great disappointment to me," the Handler sighed, almost as if it pained her. Five's only reply was to scowl back; he had of course earned many similar words so often from Sir Reginald, it barely hurt to hear anymore. But that did not give  _this_ woman the right to say it. 

     And she had gone on, patronizingly. "You're a first-rate pragmatist!" she told him, stepping closer with her hands outstretched. "You belong  _here_ with us."

     Five recoiled a litte, the mask of composed anger beginning to crack. "I don't belong anywhere, thanks to you," he snapped. A childish fury swelled and burned within him, making his hands tremble.  _I don't even belong in my own body anymore,_ he did not say. "You made me a killer!" 

     "You were always a killer," the Handler hissed, drawing a gun. "I just pointed you in a direction."

     Without completely meaning to, Five wondered if she was right. But then he was running and dodging, caring only that he completed his new mission before she could stop him. 

     "Is this really how you want the last line of your report to read?" the woman asked, raising her gun as he appeared in front of her with a pop. 

     "When I'm done, I'm just done, I guess," Five quipped, leaning on the tube consoles. He smiled sharply, showing his opponent that he was utterly unafraid. 

     But the Handler looked equally stoic. "You can't keep this up, Five. We both know that even you have a limit." She stalked forward, pulling back the hammer of the gun with an icy click. "I  _saved_ you from a lifetime of being alone. You  _owe_ me." 

     The sound of his number on her lips brought that sense of pure wrongness again, but it was more the claim that she had saved him that truly enraged Five. His heart felt colder than it ever had before. The pneumatic tube whooshed as it carried his last message safely away, and the Handler pulled the trigger. The gun, suddenly empty, clicked uselessly and Five smiled thinly at the victory. 

     "I do owe a debt," he conceded before jumping into a portal. Reappearing in the hallway opposite his previous spot, he pulled the pin on a grenade and waved it at the Handler as she turned around. The boy grinned menacingly. "But it's not to you." 

     He threw the grenade and scrambled out into the hall. His back slammed against the brick wall as the explosion shook the building. Fire and smoke poured out of the destroyed tube room, and Five found himself wishing that the sight was not so familiar. Shaking the thought away and forcing himself to keep moving, he opened another portal. 

     Next was the briefcase room. As he fled the detonation of the second grenade, the old man could almost hear Luther's voice in his head:  _"I know you're still a good person, Five."_

 _Well, you were wrong again, Number One,_ Five thought bitterly.  _That guard back there was an innocent, or at least, as innocent as any Commission employee could be._

The thought induced a peculiar twinge of pain in his chest, but his pushed it away. There was more important things to worry about, like the wall of fire advancing on him. Swallowing hard, Five opened the briefcase, and the blue temporal light quickly enveloped him with a screech. 

     ~~~~~~~~~~

     He had most certainly not intended to drop abruptly out of the air and land on the bar with a painful crash. Luther, Diego, Allison, and Klaus shouted in surprise, scrambling out of the way. Dizzy and aching, Five tried to push himself up off the bar, but tumbled to the floor with an unceremonious thump. 

     "Five, where have you been?" Luther demanded, having recovered from his shock. 

     "Are you alright?" Allison asked, trying to help him up. 

     "Who did this?" Luther had apparently finally noticed his smaller brother's rattled, scorched appearance. 

     Five stumbled to his feet with Allison's assistance, then took his sister's coffee from her hand as he shoved away from his fussing siblings. "Irrelevant," he growled, refusing to feel guilty. "The apocalypse is in three days." 

     Irritatingly, they stared back at him with obvious disbelief. 

     "So, if y'all don't get your sideshow acts together, we're screwed," he pressed on harshly. "Who cares if Dad messed us up? Are we gonna let that define us?" Five squared his shoulders. "No. I know who's responsible for the apocalypse." 

~~~~~~~~~~

     Ignoring Diego's incident with the front door, getting into Harold Jenkins' house had been relatively easy. For Five, however, getting out would prove to be much more difficult. The pain in his side was growing more intense with each passing moment, making it very hard for the boy to focus. 

     Diego and Allison were currently gawking at the creepy Academy shrine in Jenkins' attic, but Five was beginning to feel very dizzy. Suddenly, he couldn't stand up straight anymore, and there was a sensation of blood trickling warmly down his side. 

      _The last explosion at the Commission,_ he realized as his vision began to darken.  _Shrapnel._ Then, with a faint sigh, he crumpled to the floor. 

     "Five?" Allison and Diego turned and knelt beside him, startled. "Blood." His sister took on a concerned look and pawed at his clothes. 

     Five whimpered and writhed in pain as she pulled up his shirt to reveal the deep wound below his ribs. Agony shot up his side, threatening to drag him fully into the darkness. 

     "Jesus, Five," Diego swore. "Why didn't you say anything?" 

     "You have to keep going," Five responded weakly. Subconsciously, he reached for Allison. "So... close..." But then his eyes slid closed and he blacked out. 

~~~~~~~~~~

     Five could feel himself being carried, clutched tightly against someone's chest. It was warm and safe, and his eyes would not open. A female voice spoke nearby, gentle, fretful, and muffled through the haze of Five's pain. He was suddenly jostled in the arms holding him, and he let out an agonized squeak. 

     Someone muttered a gruff apology just above his head.  _Diego,_ Five realized dimly. Soft fingertips brushed against his forehead, sweeping his bangs out of his face.  _Allison._

     The presence of his siblings made Five relax at last, and he could not help but lean into his sister's motherly touch. From the moment he had returned from the future, Five had taken quick notice of Allison's kinder behavior, so different that she had been when they were young. 

     Even more comforting was the presence of Grace back at the Academy. Five had nearly dropped out of consciousness again, but he could feel his mother's diligent fingers set to work. Although Grace had originally been created for care-taking, she also possessed the capacity to act as a creature of logic. For this, Five would always be strangely grateful. 

     But when Grace pried the shrapnel out of his side, the boy blacked out again from the pain. 

     His dreams were dark, fevered, and altogether formless, but haunted but a familiar sense of dread. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Further reflection on Five's part. He's pretty harsh on himself and his siblings. Interesting...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuing on! I skipped around a little, omitted some dialogue. Don't worry about it, you'll be able to follow along. Besides, we've all watched this show like 6+ times now right? Hope you like this chapter.

     The apocalyptic fires of the future had indeed darkened Five's sleep for decades, but such became easy to bear once he adjusted to seeing the same images in his waking world. In honesty, the one thing that kept him awake at night was the memory of finding his siblings dead in the destruction of the world. Their cold, broken bodies lying among the crumbled Academy was branded on his mind forever, never once becoming any less painful to comprehend. 

     Five, noticing Ben's absence from the wreckage, had allowed himself to hope that he would find his brother alive somewhere. The discovery of Vanya's book had shattered that hope, her description of Ben's death so painful, Five might as well have witnessed it himself. He was glad that he had not; he never wanted to see any one of his siblings lie dead or dying ever again. 

     But here he was now, staring down at the horrifyingly still body of Allison. Blood poured from the deep gash in his sister's throat and pooled on the floor; her eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. Luther, Klaus, and Diego cried out in shock, throwing themselves down beside Allison, but Five was frozen. 

      _Claire,_ he thought numbly, an odd realization all things considered. But indeed, it sickened him to think that his young niece might lose her mother before the right time.  _Allison would have died anyway,_ some harsh voice hissed from the back of his mind. He shook the thought away, loathing himself for it. 

     Five felt far away, but let himself move to stand beside his brothers. Luther, still on the floor, had pulled Allison into his arms and was sobbing into her hair. Diego and Klaus stared blankly, pale and gaunt-looking. Five looked up at them helplessly, almost juvenile in his confusion. But no one offered him and explanation. No one could. 

~~~~~~~~~~

     The next twenty minutes were an agonizing blur. Five was not sure if he ever stopped moving, running ahead of the others, opening doors, or lingering nervously behind his brothers. Luther had insisted on carrying Allison himself; Five was not strong enough, after all. All he could do was drive, hands white-knuckled on the wheel and gas pedal pressed all the way down. Diego barely spoke during their mad rush back to the Academy, his eyes and expression vacant. Klaus was positively wild with panic, barely contained as he rocked back and forth and muttered to himself. 

     When at last they had made it upstairs to the infirmary, it was relieving to see Grace set quickly to her urgent task. Five kept his hands around Allison's neck, stopping the blood flow as his mother prepared to operate. Despite his position, Five felt helpless; he had certainly had to patch plenty of wounds in his time, but none so grisly as this. 

     "She's suffered a severe laceration to her larynx," Grace announced, all business. "One of you will have to give blood."

     "I will!" Five volunteered quickly, but his three brothers spoke the same with identical speed. 

     "I'm doing it," Luther snapped, rolling up his sleeve. 

     Pogo, who had been standing quietly beside the bed, stepped forward. "I'm afraid that is not possible, dear boy. Your blood is more compatible with mine." 

     Luther looked ready to argue, but Klaus jumped up. "Hey, don't sweat it! I-I got this, big guy." He hurried to stand beside Grace. "I-I love needles." 

     Five knew what the response would be before Pogo even spoke. 

     "Master Klaus, your blood is... How shall I say this? Too polluted." 

     Five grit his teeth in annoyance and looked up at Grace. Her eyes were already on him, and when their eyes met, she gave a tiny shake of her head. 

      _Too small,_ he realized, feeling cold. A raging frustration clouded his vision as he stared down at Allison's face, and he was only distantly aware of Diego fainting at the sight of the needle. _None of t_ _his wouldn't be happening if I wasn't so damn small!_ Five berated himself.  _I should have predicted that jumping backwards in time would reverse my age._

_But then... why didn't it accelerate my age the first time?_

Dumbfounded, he could only stand and wonder blankly until Grace dismissed him. 

~~~~~~~~~~

      _Vanya._ Suddenly Diego cared about Vanya. 

     "We need to go after her."

     "Vanya is not important," Five told him coldly, limping around to stand in the middle of the living room.

     "Hey, that's your sister," the other rebuked with a grave look. "A little heartless even for you, Five."

     Strangely, Five resented being called heartless. He scowled at his brother, teeth clenched. "I'm not saying I don't care about her, but if the apocalypse happens today, she dies along with the other seven billion of us. Harold Jenkins is our first priority."

     "I agree," Diego said. "Let's go."

     Klaus had required a bit of sharp encouragement, but soon enough they were on their way. Five could not help but feel just a little excited. It was perhaps slightly childish, but soon he would complete his life-long mission of stopping the world's destruction. 

     But the discovery of Jenkins' mutilate body dissolved that excitement and gave Five an odd feeling of foreboding. "No, it can't be this easy," he growled to Klaus and Diego. "Who did this? Who killed him?"

~~~~~~~~~~

      _"You gotta just let it go."_ That's what Klaus had told him. Why was it Klaus of all people that actually made a valid point.  _Maybe the apocalypse is really over..._

    Five stared down at his drink and sighed. "Now what?" he echoed Delores, who was sitting on the counter. "I don't know. I'm open to suggestion..." 

    Then there was a knock at the door. 

     "Hazel, why are you here?" Five asked the hitman. He was almost pleased to see him, and would have continued if not for Diego. 

     "That's gotta hurt," he winced as his brother thrust a knife into Hazel's leg. "Hey, I draw the line at biting!" 

     Once Diego was safely unconscious on the floor, Five limped back to the bar. "Hazel, whatever you came here to say, I suggest you make it quick." 

     "I left my partner, quit the Commission, and came to volunteer," Hazel announced ceremoniously. "To help stop the apocalypse."

     Five could not help but laugh. "Well, I hate to break it to you, pal, but you're a day late and a dollar short." At the other's confused expression, he elaborated. "The fact that you're here right now means, without a shadow of a doubt, that the apocalypse is over."

     "Really? How do you know?"

     "The mark is dead. Found him this morning. You were the last known unknown left in the equation." Five finally let himself smile. "And if you're out, then Hellrider ain't ridin'."  

     Hazel let out a laugh of sheer ecstasy, his relief shining on his face. Beaming, he moved over to the bar and sat down beside Five. They were both quite and content for a long moment before the former assassin asked, "So now what?"

     "You know, to be honest, I don't know," Five confessed quietly. "I've been chasing this this for so long I... I never really thought about the day after." He chuckled, although rather humorlessly. It was a tragic thing to say and he knew it. 

     But Hazel seemed optimistic. "Time to start over," he said decisively. "You should do the same."

~~~~~~~~~~

      _"It's time to move on."_ He had even said it to Diego. And what credibility did he have lecturing his siblings if he wouldn't even follow his own rules? But that did not make his next choice any easier. 

     Five's heart ached profoundly as he gently placed Delores on the display platform. "It's okay, you can... say it," he told her softly. "We always were an unlikely pair."

     He shoved his hands in his pockets, uncomfortable with the emotion building up within him but knowing she would want him to express it. He knew she was upset too. 

     "This isn't easy for me, Delores, and I..." Five's breath shuddered in his chest. "I want you to know that I cherish every single minute I ever shared with you," he said reverently. "All twenty-three and a half million of them. A lifetime."

     He frowned, but chuckled in spite of himself. "And now look at us. We're lucky enough, we get a second one."

     Delores' eyes shimmered in the fluorescent lights, her kind smile steadfast and warm. 

     Five laughed again, this time actually smiling. "Yeah, you're right," he agreed with her. "I do have a lot of growing up to do." It was an amusing thought, but also strangely sad. Five took a deep breath. 

     "I'll never forget you, Delores." The boy swallowed hard and forced himself to turn away. However, as he walked towards the front of the department store, his heart felt lighter than it ever had. He didn't even mind how odd it sounded when he told the saleswoman that Delores liked sequins. 

      _Time to move on._

_~~~~~~~~~~_

    Five let his hopeful mood carry him down the brightly lit sidewalk on his way home, sure that he had never been so content in his life. Drawing close to the Academy, he wondered what his siblings would do now that they had all escaped impending doom.  _What will I_ _do?_ At this thought, he closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath of the clean night air. 

     Instead, his lungs were suddenly filled with a hot, acrid fog.  _Smoke!_ his mind wailed, slamming him into survival mode.  _No, it's dust,_ logic corrected. Five's eyes snapped open, searching for the source of this chilling intrusion. Once glance upwards, and he realized with horror that the Academy had completely collapsed. 

     His sense of security shattering as his heart began to thunder in his chest, Five broke into a run. "Oh, no, no, no.  _Please,_ _no,_ " he muttered desperately. 

     After was seemed like forever, he skidded to a halt before the rubble left of his old home.  _I was wrong,_ he despaired.  _The apocalypse has begun._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The apocalypse has finally arrived. Five struggles against his feelings of failure and guilt, having realized exactly why Vanya caused the world's destruction. He really would do anything to save his family. He loves them, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last one, y'all! Sorry it's kinda late; I was on a trip. I gotta say, I really like writing this, and I'm glad it seemed to be well-recieved. Five is my favorite of the Hargreeves siblings, because he has so much depth to him. I think I'm going to try to write a short fic on Klaus, but there are definitely more Five fics to come. But before those, let's finish this up, eh? Enjoy!

      _Vanya._ Five's very soul hurt, either from the fear or his sister's betrayal.  _How did I not realize? It was Vanya all along._ When he had been trapped in the future, he had not found her body amongst the others, and therefore never thought that  _she_ would be the harbinger of his living nightmare. 

     Five did not know what he would do if he found his siblings dead again. He did not want to think about what he would do. It was a blessing, then, that he did not have to find out in that moment. 

     "Guys!" Five's voice cracked with relief as he clambered over the rubble towards his family. "This is it! The apocalypse is still on. The world ends today."

     "I thought you said it was over," Luther growled, stomping forward.

     Five did not cower before his bigger brother. "I was wrong, okay? Vanya causes the apocalypse." It was a burden to confess, and the hurt and shock was plain on his siblings' faces. But before any of them could react or even breathe, helicopter blades roared overhead. 

     In a heartbeat, they were all drowned in a blinding white light. "Regroup at the Super Star!" Luther ordered. "Go!" 

     Without a second thought, Five stepped into a portal as the rest of the Hargreeves family scrambled in different directions to escape. 

~~~~~~~~~~

     Much to Five's unending irritation, his siblings were arguing again.  _The end of the damn world, and they_ still  _can't get it together._ He had never seen Allison hit Luther, nor Klaus actually bother to read a newspaper, but he found he was far too irked to care. The stupid bowling shoes he had been forced to wear were increasingly uncomfortable, and the time left to act against the apocalypse was slipping away. 

     "Vanya's concert," Klaus suddenly reminded them all helpfully, holding up the newspaper.

     Allison, scowling silently, wrote out on her paper pad: She's our sister.

    Luther barely looked remorseful. "We're the only ones capable of stopping this," he replied. 

    Diego and Klaus started to argue, but Five raised his own voice. "We can't give her a second chance to fight back. There are billions of lives at stake. We're past trying to save just one." He felt a twinge of guilt deep in his gut, but pushed it away. _No. The safety of the world must be our first priority._

     But the others had begun to fight again, and Five was almost grateful for the distraction in the whooshing of a pneumatic tube. Almost. 

      _"Time marches on,"_ the paper from the fortune cookie read,  _"Or does it?"_

     Five was hardly in the mood for the Handler's games, but he crumpled the slip in one hand, opened a portal, and popped away. 

~~~~~~~~~~

     If the Handler moved any closer to him, Five was certain he would snap. He could see the thick, ugly, pink scar that spread across their face, and it was all he could do not to laugh. Instead, he retained a stony expression, asking, "What do you want?" 

     It seemed he had thrown quite a wrench in her plan, but of course he hardly cared. 

     "Billions of people are about to die tonight," Five growled as the Handler walked away from him to sit on the couch. The waitress, tied up and gagged behind him, whimpered at his words, but he ignored her. "You can change that."

     The Handler shrugged. "Tonight, tomorrow. It's of little difference in the scheme of things."

     Five looked away from her, utterly unable to fathom how any human could be so damn merciless. He himself had wandered for decades in a literal hell on earth, and yet he was still here, fighting to save the lives of the many. That was something this woman would probably never be able to understand. 

     "I wanna offer you a choice," the Handler said, making him frown. "Everyone's going to die tonight, but unlike the rest of the world, you have a way out."

     Five stared and she continued. "You can abandon your family and skip ahead to the apocalypse, take a walkabout for a few decades, wondering if I'll come back and offer you a job again. Or you can stay here with your family and... die a horrible death!" 

     She laughed, the waitress whimpered again, and Five shut his eyes in a grimace. 

      _I've already lived the apocalypse. I swore to myself that I'd never go back, that I'd never let it happen again._ _That I'd never let my family die._ He stifled a sigh and shook his head, wondering when his priorities had changed so drastically. 

     The Handler seemed to read his mind. "While you weigh your options," she hummed cheerfully, "you should know that your siblings are fighting for their lives without you." 

     "You brought me here to pull me away," Five growled softly. Ignoring her final farewell, he opened a portal, letting it carry him far away from the Handler and her lies.  _Forever,_ he told himself resolutely.  _My family is more important. And they always will be._

~~~~~~~~~~

      _Complacent,_ Five thought bitterly, crouched behind a row of velvet theater seats.  _How have I grown so complacent in the past few days I've been back with the others?_

Somehow, when he had teleported into the Icarus Theater, his long-tested hunter's instincts had failed to make him conscious of the several gunmen currently attacking his siblings. If not for Luther's cry of "Five, get down!", the boy knew he would be riddled with bullet holes. 

     "Five, what the...?" Luther spluttered. "I thought you bailed on us!"

     Five felt somewhat hurt by this assumption.  _I would never leave any of you,_ he thought.  _Not on purpose, never again._ "I had an errand to run," he covered awkwardly. 

     Gunfire roared overhead, shells clattering down all around them. "This is not good," Five announced to Diego, Luther, and Allison as more Commission thugs came running into the building. "We're screwed."

     Suddenly, Klaus scrambled in, shouting at the top of his lungs. "Guys, it's Cha-Cha! She's" At Luther's shout, he ducked, bullets narrowly missing his head. The gunmen began to close in. 

     Five sprang into a portal, instinct kicking in automatically to save his brother. Landing squarely on the back of the closest thug, Five twisted the man around until he shot two of the others. One of their bullets killed him as well, and he toppled to the floor. Five crawled safely out of the way. 

     As the Commission men continued to advance, there was a shrill yell from across the room. Klaus!

     All at once, Ben appeared in front of his brother, glowing with an unearthly blue light. The ghost let out an echoing roar as his tentacles burst into view. The monstrous limbs writhed around the entire theater, grabbing gunmen from the balconies and throwing them down to their deaths. Some of the men were torn apart with brutal force. 

     Five stood slowly from his spot on the floor, staring with wide eyes at the spectacle before him. The sight of his long-dead brother was chilling, exciting, and altogether confusing; the realization that Klaus had caused it was even more so. The bright glow that danced around both Ben and Klaus was blinding. And it was beautiful. 

     The boy was suddenly shaken back to reality by a rumbling in the foundations of the building. Ben faded from view, and Five turned his gaze up to Vanya. Her violin music filled the air, every inch of her clothes and instrument turning pure white. 

     Spotting Luther's signal, Five hurried to join his siblings in a huddle at the center of the room. 

     "So how do you wanna end this thing?" Diego asked Luther once he had finally run up. Five thought it interesting that Diego was at last listening to the leader imposed on him by their father, but he did not say so out loud. 

     "We surround her," Luther said decisively. "We come at her from all angles."

     "So it's a suicide mission." Klaus' pale eyes were round and sad, but he did not object to the plan. 

     "Are we all in?"

     Every single one of the remaining Hargreaves siblings nodded, except for Allison. Luther gave her a hard look but rather than arguing, he quickly gave instructions to his brothers. 

     As he split away from the others and took his position, Five could not deny the sinking feeling in his gut. 

     " _NOW!"_ Luther's voice somehow carried over the resounding music. Five leapt into a portal and appeared on the stage. In a heartbeat, Five, Klaus, Diego, and Luther had surrounded their sister on the stage. 

     The four men were fast, but Vanya was faster. Half a second before they could touch her, she whipped her bow towards them in a deadly arc. There was a huge flash of white light that enveloped everything, and Five felt himself being thrown back. 

~~~~~~~~~~

      It felt as though an age had passed before Five could get his eyes open. He tried to move, dimly aware that his feet were not touching the ground, but every muscle seemed frozen. Pain began to spread over Five's body, and he let out a strangled cry. 

     A thick stream of energy stemmed from Vanya to each of her four brothers, holding them several feet above the floor. Luther, Diego, and Klaus looked to be in agony; Vanya seemed to be draining the life force out of them. 

     Five could feel his own vitality slipping away, but the sense of failure gripping him like icy claws would always seem to hurt more. 

      _Vanya,_ he thought helplessly.  _I never thought... never dreamed it would be Vanya._ Memories flickered before his hazy vision; images of his sweetest sister at he had known her when they were young. She had always been wise and gentle, trying to keep Five out of trouble; she was always kind to the others, even when they had been cruel to her. And they had always been cruel to her. 

      _"Vanya is not important."_ He had said it himself.  _All of my work, all my calculations... I was so careful, I accounted for everything. No. I was stupid. I was arrogant._ It was painful to think, but Five knew it was the truth.  _Vanya cared about me, every day. If I had just cared about her too, this wouldn't be happening!_

The boy stared down at his sister, mind still working despite the fact that his spirit was fading.  _She has a right to be angry,_ he realized.  _It was all of us. We all made her feel like she was worthless._ Vanya was beautiful in all her cold, white, expressionless rage, and Five accepted it, never wondering when he had learned to see beauty in destruction. The music too was deafening, but gorgeous. 

      _The White Violin,_ Five thought sagely as his vision began to blacken.  _That's what Hargreaves would have called her. If he had cared._

Abruptly, Allison was there on the stage, standing behind Vanya with a gun pointed at her sister's head. She had tears in her eyes. 

      _No!_ Five wanted to scream.  _Please don't kill her!_ But he and his brothers were dying, and he knew Allison would also do anything for her family. 

     But he also should have known that Allison was anything but a murderer. The woman shifted her gun just to the right of Vanya's ear and fired. The light faded immediately, the four brothers dropped, and a huge beam of energy blasted up through the glass roof and into the night sky. 

     Then Vanya collapsed. Glass rained down from above, and the violin clattered uselessly down onto the stage as Allison caught her sister. 

     Five, somehow revitalized, scrambled up with the other three until he was beside his sisters.  _She's alive,_ he realized as he gazed at Vanya, knowing before Allison confirmed it. 

     "Oh, thank God," Klaus sighed breathlessly, dragging shaky hands down his face. 

     "We did it," gasped Luther. "We saved the world."

     Diego grinned manically and Allison hugged Vanya close. Five, staring around at his siblings, felt like crying. 

      _It's over,_ he told himself.  _It's really over, and we're safe. My family is finally safe._

"Uh... guys?" 

     Five jerked his head up at the sound. Klaus was standing at the edge of the stage, pointing at the gaping hole in the ceiling. 

     Now Five really felt like crying. In the huge, burning moon rock that was now hurtling towards Earth, he could see the years of destruction he had found in the future so long ago. 

     "So this is it, huh?" Klaus asked, sad and resigned. He grabbed weakly at his dog tags. "So much for... saving the world." 

     Diego was a little more bitter, but no less accepting of their fate. "If only Sir Reginald could see us now, huh? The Umbrella Academy. A total failure." 

     Agonized, Five paced back and forth beside Vanya and Allison. He could hear the thundering, deep in the surface of the earth as the first spots of fiery doom struck it.  _No. No, no, no,_ his mind objected wildly.  _I worked so hard. It can't end here._

"At least we're together at the end," Luther said solemnly. "As a family."

     "This doesn't have to be the end," Five blurted, an idea finally clicking into place. His dark bangs were hanging in his eyes, but he could clearly see the disbelief on his brothers' faces as they turned to look at him. For once, their confusion wasn't infuriating. 

     "We use my ability to time travel," he explained. "But this time, I take you with me."

     "You can do that?" Diego asked.

     "I don't know," Five confessed. "I've never tried it before."

     His brother shrugged. "What's the worst that could happen?"

     "You're looking at it. A 58-year-old man inside a child's body, so there's that." Five laughed a little, in spite of himself, at the absurdity of it all.

     Surprisingly enough, Klaus, Diego, and Luther were quickly open to the idea. After a brief consultation with Allison and evidently Ben, they were all in solid agreement 

     "Okay, great. Luther, grab Vanya," Five ordered, quickly gathering the rest of his siblings into a circle. 

     Luther obeyed, but then seemed to hesitate as he joined them with the seventh Hargreeves in his arms. "Wait, should we be taking her? I mean, if she's the cause of the apocalypse, isn't that kinda like taking the bomb with us?"

     Diego, Allison, and Klaus looked ready to argue, but Five intervened. "The apocalypse will always happen, and Vanya will always be the cause," he declared, accepting the notion for himself. "Unless we take her with us and fix her." 

     The others exchanged nervous glances, but finally nodded in consent. At Five's signal, they all joined hands and huddled closely together. The violin had been abandoned on the floor. 

     Five felt a strange unity in his siblings leaned into each other. Shifting his grip on Allison's hand, the boy lifted his chin and summoned all the strength he could. 

     The temporal portal did not come immediately, and Five grit his teeth hard. At last, blue light began to glow in a large know overhead and strange winds whipped at their hair. Electricity popped and crackled as it began to swirl around the group, and Five felt pressure building in his head. He had experienced the sensation before, but never quite so intense.  _I've never time traveled with so many people before... I can barely do it with just me!_

     He let out a tight cry of pain, the smell of ozone overwhelming. Clinging to Diego and Allison, he tried to keep his siblings as close as possible. 

     "It's working!" Luther cried. And indeed, the temporal energy was coiling more tightly around them with each passing second. 

      _Exactly like the night of my return,_ Five thought. 

     Then, he detected a small but wildly familiar shift that he could never even try to explain. "Hold on!" Five shouted above the roar. "It's gonna get messy!" 

     He looked back at his siblings, and was barely surprised to see that they were now years younger. What did surprise him was the sudden presence of Ben. His brother was visible, and looking just as terrified as the others. He huddled close to Klaus and desperately met Five's gaze across the circle. 

      _Oh, Ben. I'm so_ _glad to see you, even if it's like this. I'm sorry I wasn't there when you died. I should have been there. But now I can stop any of it from ever happening. This time, I will_ save  _my family._

Five did not know if he would ever have the time to speak to his formerly deceased brother, or even the right words.  _I have to finish this. Now._

The pain in his head was blinding, but Five shoved it away. With one last determined pull at his power, he slammed the temporal portal around the. The air screamed in his ears. 

     Then suddenly all was silent. There was a flash of light, then utter darkness. Five felt his feet land on solid ground. 

 

The End


End file.
